Speaker
Dr
Andre Mischke
(Utrecht University)
Description
The energy loss of partons is predicted to be a sensitive probe of the
QCD matter created in high energy nucleus-nucleus collisions since its
magnitude depends strongly on the colour charge density of the matter
traversed. In particular, the understanding of the flavour dependent
coupling of quarks and the modification of their fragmentation function
give essential information on the properties of the medium.
Due to their large mass, heavy quarks are believed to be predominantly
produced in the initial state of the collision and, therefore, probe the
complete space-time evolution of the expanding medium. Recent RHIC
results on single electron production in nucleus-nucleus collisions have
shown that the yield at high transverse momentum is suppressed to the
same level as observed for light-quark hadrons, which was not expected
due to the dead-cone effect.
Heavy-quark particle azimuthal angular correlations allow studying the
fragmentation function of charm and bottom quarks separately, where
high-pT decay electrons are associated with open charmed mesons. The
precision on secondary vertex finding in the ALICE Inner Tracker System
will play a key role for the reconstruction of the decay products.
First simulation studies and current experimental preparations in the
ALICE experiment will be presented.
Primary author
Dr
Andre Mischke
(Utrecht University)
